


visions & nightmares

by Jayde_Spell



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Asthma References, Bugs and Critters, Drowning, Financial Problems, Gen, Grief, Health Issues Referenced, Ice, M/M, Mourning, Protective Bucky, Reminiscing, Steve in his own skin, Steve’s Given Up, Suicidal Thoughts, The Mountaintop, mold, possible self harm?, shower, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-12 14:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17469257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jayde_Spell/pseuds/Jayde_Spell
Summary: There’s no Bucky, running home like an Olympian because shit, the power’s been off for too long now, and he knows Stevie can’t be doing well without the heat.There’s no Peggy, waiting on the other side of the ship’s door, calm and collected with that small smirk of hers.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Lying here imagining what’s going on in Steve’s head while he’s drowning. Please be gentle (: alrdy fked up wth nowher 2 go

The ice is cold. Colder than anything Steve has ever felt in his life. it’s colder than Brooklyn in winter, even. 

When he was small, or at least significantly smaller than he is in his current body, the cold seemed to make a home inside of his lungs. 

He’d cough day in and day out. Unable to work or be of any use to Buck. To anybody. He’d just be lying there for hours waiting for the fit to pass or just waiting for God to smite him down. He’s already counted the amount of scratches their floor had next to the bed. He’s already watched the slow decline of water moving through the corner of ceiling. Bucky says it’s about to mold, which makes Steve wonder if the cold would bypass his lungs all together and go straight for his weak heart. Mold is a killer. He’d have to consult his asthma, but he figures his lungs would say the same thing. He doubted it would take long for the ice to settle in his sickly chest. Doubts there would be anything left of him for Bucky, whenever he’d manage to get home from work. 

The ice is cold. Colder than anything he’s ever experienced. He supposes being a super-soldier, or whatever the hell he is, makes him more immune to it. He figures if there was more passengers besides him, they’d be dead by now. His body makes him stronger than most. It’s been 24 hours, he knows because he’s kept his watch above the lapping water, since he fell into the ice. 

The water has crawled up past his waist now. But there’s no stopping it, no stopping little Steve from finally tasting death. No Bucky, running home like an Olympian because shit, the power’s been off for too long now, and he knows Stevie can’t be doing well without the heat. There’s no Peggy, waiting on the other side of the ship’s door, calm and collected with that small smirk of hers. 

It doesn’t matter. The water prickles his skin. It feels like a thousand hands are pinching his flesh at the same time. It doesn’t matter. A part of Steve, the delirious part, wants to tell the pinching hands to piss off. That he’s busy thinkin’. See, Bucky’s waiting on him still. Now that Steve’s bigger and all’ he can finally be of some use. So piss off - he’s busy. He’s thinkin’.

He’s - he’s drowning. 

Steve knows he should lift his head above the water level. He knows he shouldn’t have crashed the plane in the first place. Bucky would kill him if he knew. 

But - see

Look. 

Bucky’s not waiting around for Steve any more. He’s not angry at him, can’t be angry at him, not anymore. He’s gone. Just gone from his life. The one person he could always, always, count on. Just... he’s gone now. 

This is the point Steve’s trying to make: 

There’s nobody waiting for him on the other side of that ship’s door. Nobody he really wants to talk to. 

He guesses while it was true (or is true, Christ) that he wanted Peggy as his girl and that she did want him back - it’s not same. It’s never gonna be the same again. Why bother?

Why bother when he knows on that mountaintop in the distance Buck’s waitin’ for him. Has been for a while.


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve reckons he should probably keep things simple for right now. He’s thankful the water’s warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-Beta’d. Work with me! Please be gentle, comments are always appreciated (:

The beauty of living inside Stark’s tower ain’t the view, the furniture, or even the building itself. 

Stark’s got money, which means the water’s always runnin’ hot. 

Steve lets it slide over his head and watches it collect on the floor and swirl back into the drain. Now, he’s not a plumber. He doesn’t have a clue about all the complex inter-workings of the piping. But Bruce had showed him this article on his tablet thingy about where the water goes in the end. Steve might be enjoying the heat now but the penguins sure won’t. The sewers are so congested they probably don’t need any more of his shower water either. 

It might be pretty to watch the water swirl in the drain now but there’s always a consequence for the pleasure. 

Steve reckons he should probably keep things simple for right now. He’s thankful the water’s warm. 

The suds have been washed away for a while and Steve half-wishes that it was be that easy to wash away everything else. That a layer of his skin would peel away under the incredible heat. Ultimately purifying and cleansing him. It would be though some sort of second-stage metamorphosis.

He’s been in the water for too long. He’s beginning to feel light headed. 

When Steve was younger, and everything was just so simple in ways he can’t even talk about, he would dread the times when it was necessary to bathe. Now, Steve’s all about being clean. But cleanliness ain’t the issue for 5’4” Steve. The issue was the cold, the issue was the water bill, the issue was in the furrowing of Bucky’s brow as he tried to figure out how exactly to keep the two of them afloat. On the worst of days, when his condition was so goddamn bad, he couldn’t even make it to the shower himself. And Buck, his best friend in the whole world, would hold him up and wash him. On those days, those days, Steve was the humblest a man could be. There was shame, of course there was, but that was, in the end, washed away by his gratitude. Thank god for Buck. 

Thank god. 

He doesn’t need that kind of help anymore. He’s capable, now, and as independent as a man out of time can be. But the issue isn’t in that. Maybe in the loneliness, he thinks. Sometimes the only human contact he has (that he allows himself) is in battle. He can’t train with half the men on the team. It just wouldn’t be fair given his abilities. 

There’s nobody holding him up nowadays. Spiritually or physically. 

He really should turn the water off. He knows this. 

The steam is clouding over his eyes and the heat on his skin leaves the most perfect ache and burn. His normally pale skin is an angry red that stretches out over his chest and down his arms. He sighs into the pain. 

Since his first transformation, his first real experience with metamorphosis, Steve’s body has managed to keep the same level of sensitivity to sensation. It made Bruce scratch his head in wonder, when Steve told him this. With all the muscle and rapid cellular regeneration, mutation, all the scientists working on Steve that first time anticipated and prepared him for a reality in which he would go through life with only dull acknowledgment of pain (of pleasure). Steve had taken this grandly, with a proud soldier’s attitude. Different times. 

This new world terrifies Steve. They all evolved without him. There’s... there’s so many new rules now. So many people and faces. In New York, in Brooklyn (his first real home) alone, the people are living stacked and stacked and stacked on top of each other. It reminds him of an anthill or maybe a beehive. But less orderly. Less uniform. Normal, everyday people are living all squished together while Steve has this entire space to himself. Where the justice in that? Steve doesn’t even pay rent. 

He needs to turn off the water. His muscles ache. Raising his hand to the shower knob is harder than he knows it should be. He can feel his heart’s palpitations in his chest. 

And then it’s just Steve. No water, no sound, no other living being in the entire apartment. It’s just Steve and his mind. He can’t help the laughter that crawls up his body at the thought. 

Bucky once told him, when he was young and reckless and fucking angry, that he’d end up pushing everyone away if he wasn’t careful. Steve knows he didn’t mean it to be so literal. 

They once told each other: ‘’Till the end of the line.’ He really can’t stop the manic laughter now. ‘Who says shit like that anyways?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The question that the avengers shouldn’t be asking is “what’s wrong with Steve?” 
> 
> The question they should be asking is “what isn’t wrong with Steve?”

**Author's Note:**

> Like? Thinking of continuing. Got something lined up.


End file.
